LAGUNA NIGUEL – The State CIF Office released the boys’ basketball State Regional playoff brackets Sunday afternoon and put some nifty first-round games on the table for Tuesday and Wednesday nights.
Action in Divisions I-V (with 16-team brackets) begins Tuesday and follows on Thursday, Saturday and March 5.
The eight-team Open bracket begins Wednesday night, with semifinals on Saturday night and the final on March 5.
All championship games will be hosted by the higher remaining seed in the matchup, instead of being played in large venues (such as the Pyramid on the Long Beach State campus).
As expected, Sierra Canyon (which knocked off Bishop Montgomery in the Southern Section Open final Saturday night at Cal Baptist University in Riverside) was the No. 1 seed and was matched with No. 8 and San Diego Open winner Torrey Pines.
L.A. City Open champion Fairfax and was the No. 2 seed.
The Lions get a first-round game with the only team they’ve lost to this season (in the Classic at Damien Platinum semifinals on Dec. 28), No. 7 Corona Centennial.
Rancho Christian – the only team from Southern California to knock off Sierra Canyon in roughly a year – was, in a mild surprise, sent to the road as the No. 5 seed where it will face host Westchester.
The Comets were the No. 4 seed despite losing three times to Fairfax.
Bishop Montgomery and Mater Dei – which each won two of the first six Southern Section Open titles – make up final Open first-round matchup, with the Knights as the No. 3 seed and the Monarchs No. 6.
For the first time, the state commissioners put five Southern Section teams into the Open Division.
None of those five played one another in the Southern Section’s Open pool play of the past two weeks.
The Knights and Monarchs last hooked up in 2017, with Bishop Montgomery prevailing in both the Southern Section and State Regional Open finals.
It will be interesting to see if the top four “hosts” – each with non-“large capacity seating” gymnasiums – are prodded into finding bigger venues for those Wednesday games.
The Southern Section’s other three Open teams, Etiwanda, Rancho Verde and St. John Bosco, earned seeds 1-3 in Division I.
Santa Margarita, which beat Chino Hills in the Southern Section Division 1 final Saturday afternoon at Cal Baptist, was awarded the No. 4 seed and will play host to No. 13 San Diego Mission Bay Tuesday night.
Mission Bay, led by Duke-bound guard Boogie Ellis, lost to Torrey Pines in the San Diego Open semifinals.
The most compelling and entertaining Tuesday night game could be the Division I clash at Chino Hills High between the No. 6 Huskies and USC-bound Onyeka Okongwu and No. 11 Mayfair.
The Monsoons, led by superb junior Josh Christopher (PICTURED), seemed destined to be the top seed in Division II after knocking off Rancho Cucamonga Saturday at Azusa Pacific in the 2AA championship game.
But, apparently, the Central Section’s decision to send its Division I champion (Clovis West) and runner-up (Bullard) to the Northern Regional resulted in the need for another Division I entry.
All 12 of the Southern Section’s entrants from the Open and Division 1 had already been accounted for so Mayfair was pulled up.
Mater Dei played Centennial and at Sierra Canyon in Pool Play.. Rancho Christian played Bishop Monty in pool play.